Alfredo Arias (born 4 March 1944) is a theatre producer, actor and playwright. Born in a Buenos Aires suburb, he has subsequently acquired French nationality and, since 1969 or 1970, been based in Paris. [1]
Arias was born in Lanús, [2] an industrial city contiguous with Buenos Aires. His father was a factory worker: output included espadrilles and tarpaulins. His relationship with his mother was troubled and Arias joined the Péronist youth organisation. His parents planned that he should become a lawyer, although Arias himself developed an early determination to work in the arts. Aged 11 he was enrolled in a military school after which he was required to pass a legal qualification. [3]
He participated in the theatrical courses provided by the Alliance Française, but was quickly discouraged by its outdated and classical approach. [4]
With like minded friends Alfredo Arias founded a theatrical group in Buenos Aires called "TSE" in 1968, [5] and presented a series of original productions blending fantasy, magic and humour, "Dracula", "Aventuras" and "Aventuras". However, identified as both a communist and a homosexual he began to targeted by official repression from proxies for the military dictatorship which then held sway in Argentina. He decided to leave Argentina at the end of 1968, settling briefly in New York City before moving on to Paris. [5]
His first piece in Paris, "History of the Theatre" ("Histoire du Théâtre"), and his production of a play about Eva Perón, written by his fellow exile, Copi, were both commended for their originality of tone, elements of fantasy, and above all for their radically new theatrical approach. They were followed by "Police Comedy de luxe" ("Comédie policière ; Luxe"), a music hall parody, and by "Heartbreak of an English she-cat" ("Peines de cœur d'une chatte anglaise"), based on the novel of Balzac and the illustrations of Grandville, in which the characters wear masks, which ran for more than 300 performances in France and enjoyed commensurate success internationally, especially in Italy.
His "TSE group" having been successfully translated from South America, staged productions in a range of Paris theatres, presenting new creations including "The North Star" ("L'Étoile du Nord"), "The Venetian Twins" ("Les Jumeaux vénitiens") by Goldoni, "The Jungle Beast" ("La Bête dans la jungle") by Marguerite Duras based on a novel by Henry James, and "The seated woman" ("La Femme assise") by Copi.
In 1985 Arias was appointed to direct the Commune Theatre at Aubervilliers in the northern suburbs of Paris. Here he spent six years working on the classical repertoire, on contemporary productions and on ironic music hall reinterpretations, ranging across Marivaux, Maeterlinck, Mérimée, Goldoni and others. His musical production "Family of Artists" underwent a reprise in Argentina. He also collaborated again with his compatriot, Copi, for "The steps of the Sacré-Cœur" ("Les Escaliers du Sacré-Cœur").
He was invited to produce The Tempest in the Palais des Papes for the Avignon Festival, and the Comédie-Française invited him to stage Schnitzler's La Ronde at the Odéon Theatre in Paris. In 1992 he began a series of original creations that enabled him to invent a new theatrical language blending dance and music with poetic dialogues. Examples include the award winning review "Mortadela" (written in collaboration with René de Ceccatty, with whom he has subsequently written regularly), Folies Bergère reviews "Fous des Folies" and "Faust Argentin" and a new staging of "Heartbreak of an English she-cat" ("Peines de cœur d'une chatte anglaise") which won Molière awards for its staging and costumes.
Alfredo Arias has also brought his very personal touch to opera, in France (Opéra Bastille, Théâtre du Châtelet, the Aix-en-Provence Festival and the Caen Opera), in Italy (Milan, Turin and Spoleto) in Spain and Argentina (Teatro Colón). Operas staged by Alfredo Arias include the following:
The Teatro Colón is a historic opera house in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is considered one of the ten best opera houses in the world by National Geographic. According to a survey carried out by the acoustics expert Leo Beranek among leading international opera and orchestra directors, the Teatro Colón has the room with the best acoustics for opera and the second best for concerts in the world.
The Opéra-Comique is a Paris opera company which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with – and for a time took the name of – its chief rival, the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. It was also called the Théâtre-Italien up to about 1793, when it again became most commonly known as the Opéra-Comique. Today the company's official name is Théâtre national de l'Opéra-Comique, and its theatre, with a capacity of around 1,248 seats, sometimes referred to as the Salle Favart, is located at Place Boïeldieu in the 2nd arrondissement of Paris, not far from the Palais Garnier, one of the theatres of the Paris Opéra. The musicians and others associated with the Opéra-Comique have made important contributions to operatic history and tradition in France and to French opera. Its current mission is to reconnect with its history and discover its unique repertoire to ensure production and dissemination of operas for the wider public. Mainstays of the repertory at the Opéra-Comique during its history have included the following works which have each been performed more than 1,000 times by the company: Cavalleria Rusticana, Le chalet, La dame blanche, Le domino noir, La fille du régiment, Lakmé, Manon, Mignon, Les noces de Jeannette, Le pré aux clercs, Tosca, La bohème, Werther and Carmen, the last having been performed more than 2,500 times.
The English Cat is an opera in two acts by Hans Werner Henze to an English libretto by Edward Bond, based on Les peines de coeur d'une chatte anglaise by Honoré de Balzac. The opera was first performed in a German translation by the Stuttgart Opera at the Schlosstheater Schwetzingen at the Schwetzingen Festival on 2 June 1983. The French premiere was at the Opéra-Comique, Paris in 1984. The first performance using the original English text was at Santa Fe on 13 July 1985. The UK premiere was at the Leith Theatre, Edinburgh, on 19 August 1987. A revised version was performed at Montepulciano in 1990 and this was given in London in 1991.
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Raúl Damonte Botana, better known by the nom de plume Copi, was an Argentine writer, cartoonist, and playwright who spent most of his career in Paris.
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Rostislav Doboujinsky was a Russian designer of costumes, masks, sets and interiors, and a painter and illustrator. He belonged to the second generation of Russian artists who developed the tradition of the 'Ballets Russes' in Western Europe. He was noted for his work on Louis Jouvet's Ondine by Jean Giraudoux in the 1930s and Max Ophul's film Le Plaisir in 1951, for the mouse masks and costumes he created for Rudolf Nureyev's The Nutcracker (1967), the costumes for The Sleeping Beauty ballet at London's Covent Garden (1968) and the animal masks for The Tales of Beatrix Potter (1971). He achieved international success with his masks for Alfredo Arias's adaption of Balzac's Peines de Coeur d'une Chatte Anglaise (1977).